EULOGY 



DF.LIVKRKI) BY TKK 



HON. THOMAS H. BENTON, 

'I 

IN THE 

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
ON THE 2d DAY OF FEBRUARY, 1844, 

ON 

THE ANNUNCIATION TO THAT BODY OF THE 
DEATH 

OF THE 

HON. ALEXANDER PORTER, 

LATE A SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA. 



MISSOURIAN OFFICE. 
1844, 



*0 



> 



"ST. LOUrS, Feb. 28th, 1844. 

"Gen. V. P. Van Antwerp, 

Editor of Missourian, 
« SIR, 

"The undersigned have read, in your paper of the 17th 
inst.jthe touching and beautiful eulogium pronounced by the 
Hon. Thomas H. Benton, in the United States Senate, on the 
late lamented Alexander Porter, United States Senator 
from Louisiana. As natives of Ireland, and as American 
citizens, we are justly proud of the successful and brilliant 
career of the deceased, and the talent and virtue for which 
he was so eminently distinguished. Like him, too, some of us 
are connected by blood and affection — all of us by sympathy — 
with the men w^ho in '98 struck for the freedom of Ireland, 
and who, betrayed and overwhelmed, sealed their fidelity 
to her with their blood ! We observe, therefore, with pecu- 
liar gratification, that Mr. Benton, while paying the tribute 
of friendship to the memory of Senator Porter, has nobly 
vindicated the patriots of '98, and the cause in which they 
gloriously fell. The speech, w^hile pointing at the admira- 
ble working of our republican institutions, is characterized 
throughout by liberal and generous sentiments, creditable to 
him as a man, and w^orthy of an American Senator. We are 
desirous of giving a more extended circulation to this speech 
than it has yet had among our fellow-citizens ; we believe 
the Missourian is the only paper in this city in which it has 
been published, and therefore wish you to print for us one 
thousand copies. 

" We remain your obedient servants, 

«L. E. LAWLESS, AUSTIN PIGGOT, 

ARTHUR L. MAGENIS, THOMAS M. WELDON, 

E. WALSH, JOHN HAVERTY, 

ROBERT CAMPBELL, PATRICK DEEGEN, 

THOMAS WATSON, PATRICK LAWLER, 

JOHN RTCE, WILLIAM TREACY, 

NICHOLAS TIERNAN, LAWRENCE DENINY, 

JEREmAH LANGTON, JOHN KELLY." 



NOTE. 

"We assure the gentlemen who have honored us with the 
letter prefixed, that we promptly and gladly comply with their 
request. 

"As their fellow citizen, though having a different lineage 
and birth-place, we are proud of the deep, manly feeling, and 
republican spirit which pervade their letter. How cordial 
the unity of sentiment between the speech and the letter! 
The political tempest which, in 1798, swept over unhappy 
and oppressed Ireland, threw thousands of her gallant sons 
into the bosom of our republic ; here they have realized the 
enjoyment of that liberty which they sought to establish in 
their native land, but which fraud, force, and treachery 
prevented them from achieving. 

" Ireland was separated from her children, but by America 
they were not received as strangers; she adopted them as 
her own; and the distinction, popularity, and fortune which 
many of them have attained, satisfactorily prove that she has 
not been to them a step-mother. 

"The blood of Irish patriots and martyrs now circulates 
through the veins of millions of American freemen, — the 
story of British tyranny and Irish suffering are transmitted 
from father to son; and the day may — we believe, will come^ 
when Irish patriots, aided by their American kinsmen, will 
be found side by side in battle array on the plains of Ireland, 
— their war cry. Liberty and Ireland — Death to the 
Oppressors! " — Ed. Missourian, 



EULOGY, 



&c. 



Mr. Barrow, of Louisiana, having announced the death 
of his late colleague, the Hon. ALEXANDER 
PORTER, who died on the 13th ultimo, at his 
residence in Louisiana, aged 58 years, and accom- 
panied the annunciation with a few appropriate 
remarks, submitted the following resolutions: 

•* Resolved, 

"That the Senate has received with deep sensibility 
the information of the death of the Hon. Alexander 
Porter, a Senator from the State of Louisiana; and in 
token of their high respect for the memory of the deceased, 
the members of the Senate will wear crape on the left 
arm, as mourning, for thirty days. 

* ' Resolved, 

" That, as a further mark of respect for the memory of 
the Hon. Alexander Porter, the Senate do now adjourn. 

The Resolutions having been read, Mr. BENTON rose 
and said : — 



I rise, Mr. President, to second the motion which 
has been made to render the last honors of this 
Chamber to our deceased brother Senator, whose 
death has been so feehngly annomiced; and in 
doing so, I comply with an obligation of friendship, 
as well as conform to the usage of the Senate. I 
am the oldest personal friend which the illustrious 
deceased can have upon this floor, and amongst the 
oldest which he can have in the United States. It 
is now, sir, more than the period of a generation — 
more than the third of a century — since the then 
emigrant Irish boy, Alexander Porter, and my- 
self met on the banks of the Cumberland river, at 
Nashville, in the State of Tennessee, when com- 
menced a friendship which death only dissolved on 
his part. We belonged to a circle of young lawyers 
and students at law, who had the world before 
them, and nothing but their exertions to depend 
upon. First a clerk in his uncle's store, then a 
student at law, and always a lover of books, the 
young Porter was one of that circle, and it was 
the custom of all that belonged to it to spend their 
leisure hours in the delightful occupation of read- 
ing. History, poetry, elocution, biography, the 



7 

ennobling speeches of the Hving and the dead, were 
our social recreation; and the youngest member of 
the circle was one of our favorite readers. He 
read well, because he comprehended clearly, felt 
strongly, remarked beautifully upon striking pas- 
sages, and gave a new charm to the whole with his 
rich, mellifluous Irish accent. It was then that I 
became acquainted with Ireland and her children, 
— read the ample story of her wrongs, — learnt the 
long list of her martyred patriots' names — sympa- 
thized in their fate, and imbibed the feelings for a 
noble and oppressed people which the extinction of 
my own life can alone extinguish. 

Time and events dispersed that circle. The 
young Porter, his law license signed, went to the 
Lower Mississippi — I, to the Upper: and, years 
afterwards, we met on this floor, senators from 
different parts of that vast Louisiana, which was 
not even a part of the American Union at the time 
that he and I were born. We met here in the 
session 1833, '3^^— high party times, and on oppo- 
site sides of the great party line ; but we met as we 
had parted years before. We met as friends; and, 
though often our part to reply to each other in the 



8 

ardent debate, yet never did we do it with other 
feelings than those with which we were wont to 
discuss our subjects of recreation on the banks of 
the Cumberland. 

I mention these circumstances, Mr. President, 
because, while they are honorable to the deceased, 
they are also justificatory to myself for appearing 
as second to the motion which has been made. A 
personal friendship of almost forty years gives me 
a right to appear as a friend to the deceased on 
this occasion, and to perform the office which the 
rules and the usage of the Senate permit, and 
which so many other senators would so cordially 
and so faithfully perform. 

In performing this office I have, literally, but 
little else to do but to second the motion of the 
Senator from Louisiana, (Mr. Barrow.) The 
mover has done ample justice to his great subject. 
He, also, had the advantage of long acquaintance 
and intimate personal friendship with the deceased. 
He, also, knew him on the banks of the Climber- 
land, though too young to belong to the circle of 
young lawyers and law students, of which the 
junior member — the young Alexander Porter — 



9 

was the chief ornament and delight : but he knew 
him long and intimately, and has given evidence of 
that knowledge in the just, the feeling, the cor- 
dial, and impressive eulogium which he has just 
delivered on the life and character of his deceased 
friend and colleague. He has presented to you 
the matured man^ as developed in his ripe and 
meridian age ; he has presented to you the finished 
scholar, the eminent lawyer, the profound judge, 
the distinguished senator, the firm patriot, the 
constant friend, the honorable man, the brilhant 
converser, the social, cheerful, witty companion. 
He has presented to you the ripe fruit, of which I 
saw the early blossom, and of which I felt the 
assurance, more than thirty years ago, that it 
would ripen into the golden fruit which we have 
all beheld. 

Mr. President, this is no vain or empty ceremo- 
nial in which the Senate is now engaged. Honors 
to the illustrious dead go beyond the discharge of 
a debt of justice to them, and the rendition of 
consolation to their friends; they become lessons 
and examples for the living. The story of their 
humble beginning and noble conclusion is an 



10 

example to be followed, and an incitement to be 
felt. And where shall we find an example more 
worthy of imitation, or more full of encouragement, 
than in the life and character of Alexander 
Porter? — a lad of tender age — an orphan with 
a widowed mother and younger children — the 
father martyred in the cause of freedom — an 
exile before he was ten years old — an ocean to be 
crossed, and a strange land to be seen, and a 
wilderness of a thousand miles to be penetrated 
before he could find a resting-place for the sole of 
his foot; then, education to be acquired, support 
to be earned, and even citizenship to be gained, 
before he could make his own talents available to 
his support. Conquering all these difficulties by 
his own exertions, and the aid of an affectionate 
uncle — (I will name him, for the benefactor of 
youth deserves to be named, and named with 
honor, in the highest places,) — with no aid but that 
of an uncle's kindness, Mr. Alexander Porter, sen., 
merchant of ISfashville, also an emigrant from 
Ireland, and full of generous quahties, which 
belong to the children of that soil, — this lad, an 
exile and orphan from the Old World, thus start- 



11 

ing in the New World, with everything to gain 
before it could be enjoyed, soon attained every 
earthly object, either brilliant or substantial, for 
which we live and struggle in this life. Honors, 
fortune, friends; the highest professional and 
political distinction; long a supreme judge in his 
adopted State ; twice a senator in the Congress of 
the United States, wearing all his honors fresh and 
growing to the last moment of his hfe; and the 
announcement of his death followed by the ad- 
journment of the two Houses of the American 
Congress. What a noble and crowning conclusion 
to a beginning so humble, and so apparently 
hopeless! Honors to such a life — the honors 
which we now pay to the memory of Senator 
Porter-^— are not mere offerings to the dead, or 
mere consolations to the feelings of surviving 
friends and relations; they go further, and become 
incentives and inducements to the ingenuous youth 
of the present and succeeding generations, encour- 
aging their hopes, and firing their spirits with a 
generous emulation. 

Nor do the benefits of these honors stop with 
individuals, nor even with masses or generations 



12 

of men. They are not confined to persons, but 
rise to institutions — to the noble republican 
institutions under which such things can be! 
Republican government itself — that government 
which holds men together in the proud state of 
equality and liberty — this government is benefited 
by the exhibition of the examples such as we now 
celebrate, and by the rendition of the honors 
such as we now pay. Our deceased brother 
senator has honored and benefited our free repub- 
lican institutions by the manner in which he has 
advanced himself under them; and we make 
manifest that benefit by the honors which we pay 
him. He has given a practical illustration of the 
working of our free, and equal, and elective form 
of government; and our honors proclaim the 
nature of that working. What is done in this 
Chamber is not done in a corner, but on a lofty 
eminence, seen of all people. Europe, as well as 
America, will see how our form of government has 
worked in the person of an orphan, exiled boy, 
seeking refuge in the land which gives to virtue 
and talent all that they will ever ask — the free use 
of their own exertions for their own advancement. 



13 

Our deceased brother was not an American 
citizen by the accident of birth ; he became so by 
the choice of his own will, and by the operation of 
our laws. The events of his Hfe, and the business 
of this day, show this title of citizenship to be 
as valid in our America as it was in the great 
republic of antiquity. I borrow the thought, not 
the language, of Cicero, in his pleading for the 
poet Archias, when I place the citizen who be- 
comes so by law and choice on an equal footing 
with the citizen who becomes so by chance. And 
in the instance now before us, we may say, that 
our adopted citizen has repaid us for the liberality 
of our laws ; that he has added to the stock of our 
national character by the contributions which he 
has brought to it in the purity of his private life — 
the eminence of his public services — the ardor of 
his patriotism, and the elegant productions of his 
mind. 

And here let me say — and I say it with pride 
and satisfaction — our deceased brother senator 
loved and admired his adopted country with a love 
and admiration increasing with his age, and with 
his better knowledge of the countries of the Old 



14 

World. A few years ago, and after he had 
obtained great honor and fortune in this country, 
he returned on a visit to his native land. It was 
an occasion of honest exultation for the orphan 
emigrant boy to return to the land of his fathers, 
rich in the goods of this hfe, and clothed with the 
honors of the American Senate. But the visit 
was a melancholy one to him. His soul sickened 
at the state of his fellow man in the Old World, 
(I had it from his oAvn lips,) and he returned from 
that visit with stronger feehngs than ever in favor 
of his adopted country. New honor awaited him 
here — that of a second election to the American 
Senate. But of this he was not permitted to 
taste; and the proceedings of this day announce 
his second brief elevation to this body, and his 
departure from it through the gloomy portals of 
death, and the radiant temple of enduring fame. 

The question was put, and the resolutions unanimously 
agreed to. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



014 544 



182 1 • 



